Category: m m fiction g rated

The Amazon page to which I’m linking contains the self-published work of a writer I know personally, Curt von Dornheim. I used to edit for him when I was still taking on clients on a selected basis. We became good friends after that and his work has been very inspirational for me, both in private and professionally as a writer.

I’m linking because I know his work…both fiction and non-fiction…and I always enjoyed editing it. The non-fiction is sort of spiritual new age without getting too deep or too complicated in technical jargon. It’s more feel good reading about self-esteem than it is fact based on research. He’s more than qualified to do this. He’s a retired minister and he ran a “Creative Consciousness” workshop in Key West for many years. I met him when he moved back up north and settled in New Hope because he wanted to be closer to doctors in Philadelphia and New York.

His fiction is m/m with a POV from an older gay man. It’s not erotic and it’s more focused on the love and emotion than the sex. “The Wings of Fate” is my favorite, which you can find on Amazon, I think, as a free download if you belong to that Amazon Kindle club thing. But all of his indie e-books are priced very fairly and I know the content is good because I’ve read them all.

He’s also very well read, in both non-fiction and fiction. I saw someone on a social network the other night make a blank statement that you don’t have to be a good reader to be a good writer. I disagree completely. If you don’t read good fiction you’re not going to know how to write good fiction. I’m not talking about content and subjective subject matter now. I’m talking about the techniques of crafting fiction and the more physical aspects. To say you don’t need to be a good reader to write good fiction is like trying to open up a high end retail store without ever having been inside Gucci. It just won’t work, and only time and experience teaches people things like this…the things that can’t be learned in a classroom.

The only thing I can’t promise with Curt’s books is the quality. And that’s because I didn’t do the copy editing nor did I help him get the books out on Amazon. He started doing this about a year after I told him I just didn’t have time anymore for freelance clients. So in this respect, with regard to quality and editing, I can’t make any promises. I haven’t read the self-published e-books up on Amazon. I’ve only read the raw manuscripts. And I know from my own experience with Amazon Kindle publishing sometimes words and “things” get mixed up during the conversion. But I do look at it this way: in Curt’s case, even if there are a few mistakes in editing they aren’t going to be huge, and the content is well worth the effort. You’re going to take away a lot more than if you read a bad book without any mistakes.